TheCable

Lai Mohammed, minister of information, says 100 persons, including 43 security operatives, lost their lives during the #EndSARS crisis.

Mohammed, who disclosed this at a briefing in Abuja on Thursday, also said 196 policemen sustained injuries during the catastrophe.

He accused human rights organisations and some media houses of turning a blind eye to the violence which he said was driven by misinformation.

Thousands of Nigerians had thronged the streets and major roads to protest against police brutality under the #EndSARS movement.

As the campaign later metamorphosed into agitation against “bad governance”, suspected hoodlums later broke lose, looting properties and attacking police stations.

Mohammed said eight prisons were attacked during the crisis, “with 1,957 inmates set free and 31 staff injured.”

“Six soldiers and 37 policemen were killed all over the country during the crisis,” he said.

“This is in addition to 196 policemen that were injured; 164 police vehicles that were destroyed and 134 police stations that were razed.

“Also, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, the Nigeria Customs Service and Nigeria Immigration Service all lost infrastructures, equipment and other valuables to attack by hoodlums during the crisis.

“The role of the human rights organisations, in particular, became a suspect after they simply ignored the brutal killing and maiming of security agents during the crisis, as well as the orgy of violence that left 57 civilians dead, 269private/corporate facilities burnt/looted/vandalized, 243 government facilities burnt/vandalized and 81 government warehouses looted, and instead continued to dwell on the bodiless and bloodless ‘massacre’ at Lekki Toll Gate.

“They did not see anything wrong in the public and private properties that were burnt or looted, neither did they see anything wrong in the fact that some of the businesses that were looted belonged to struggling young men and women.

“All they could see in their biased view of the whole situation was a hoax massacre.”